The fact that the OECD’s 50^th anniversary should come in the midst of a global economic crisis is a coincidence, but it could prove to be a fortuitous one. After all, historical perspectives can help better understand the present and better prepare for the future. There are other major anniversaries of historical significance also being celebrated at this time which we should look at more closely, for there are lessons to be drawn. Germany, for instance, has just commemorated the 20^th anniversary of reunification. When the former West and East Germany came together shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it marked the end of opposing the ideologies of “central planning versus markets”. More than that, reunification combined with dramatic shifts throughout the former eastern bloc and beyond, setting free hundreds of millions of people around the world.

A country’s education system has the potential to develop innovation skills in young people at an early age (“What a lasting recovery needs”, OECD Observer No 279, May 2010). Comments I’ve read on the topic seem to assume that business thinking starts after leaving school, say, with 16-18 year-olds.

As an OECD “veteran”, I was delighted to see that “human progress” is now on the OECD agenda (see www.oecd.org/progress). If you compare the OECD strategy to emerge from the oil-shock recessions of the 1970s (the McCracken Report) to the OECD Strategic Response to the Financial and Economic Crisis of today, you can see that in three decades the OECD has been transformed.

Your article on Islamic banking ("Islamic banking: an asset of promise?" No 272 April 2009) suggests that financial temperance is still possible. The ratio of assets leveraged against capital cited in the article, 20 to 1 in US banks, 30 to 1 in Europe, yet only 10 to 1 in Islamic banks reveals just how much the financial system has made greed systemic.

Letter to the editor: Secretary-General Angel Gurría argues that “advancing on the issue of water will help us move forward on almost all the Millennium Development Goals” (editorial, No. 256, July 2006). We agree, and would like to draw your attention to the Working for Water programme (WfW) in South Africa.

In your article “Virtual solution” (No. 254, March 2006), you write that “any effective policy to encourage efficient use of scarce water resources must be based on pricing.” As you explain, increasing the price of water to better reflect its scarcity would cause low-value, water-intensive crops to become uncompetitive in water-scarce countries, and their imports more attractive. There is no disputing this logic, but any water policy prescription must be based on more than pricing and consider factors other than simply water scarcity if it is to be effective and adopted by governments.